GROWTH OF CHURCH IN AFRICA IS STAGGERING

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In 1900, there were 9.6 million Christians in Africa. As of 2025, there are over 754 million. This alone is a staggering figure. But it’s even more significant as we examine it in relation to Christianity in other regions of the globe. With just under 552 million Christians in Europe, just under 417 million in Asia, and 620 million in Latin America, Africa already leads the Christian world in terms of population. And it is set to keep growing.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world currently exceeding the population replacement birth rate, which is also encouraging for African Christianity, as believing parents have more children and raise them as Christians. While these numbers do not assess the vitality and strength of the faith of those they are counting – considering that African churches are standing stronger than Western churches on key, contested biblical truths of marriage and family – at least on this issue, the convictional level of Christianity is higher in Africa than in the West. Of course, the above doesn’t account for how the Lord may move in these regions and bring revival, but these numbers represent the current state of Christianity globally.

Europe and the lands it settled have predominated as the centre of global Christianity for hundreds of years, giving birth to biblically-influenced arts, science, and education, the Reformation, America’s own founding, and sending missionaries around the globe – including to Africa within the last two centuries.

But the West has not kept pace. Over the past 100 years, Christianity has faded in the lands that once cultivated it. Even more, a subtle and dangerous shift has developed in the last several decades — the West has begun to actively work against biblical principles in the lands to which it once sent missionaries. Perhaps no subject loomed larger over the Pan-African Conference for Family Values, held May 12-14 in Nairobi, Kenya, than what the West has done to target the African family in recent years. 

NOW THE WEST IS ACTIVELY WORKING AGAINST CHRISTIANITY IN AFRICA

The Chairperson of the Africa Christian Professionals Forum, Mrs. Ann Mbugua said, “The fight for the family must continue. The family is too precious to be left unattended, to be attacked from all corners.”

As far as the Africans at this conference are concerned, the West has been actively working against their families. Their primary source of pain is that the boatloads of money that have been pumped into the continent to kill their unborn children (by promoting abortion) and attack the integrity of the human person and undermine marriage and family (by promoting LGBT ideology). Not only that, but how this money is coming in is coercive. African government leaders are having their arms twisted by Western diplomats and NGOs and told that if they don’t agree to allow abortion and LGBT ideology, they aren’t going to get the financial aid they often so desperately need. At the conference, one Kenyan leader said that “the week after Biden was elected” in 2020, LGBT groups and advocacy efforts “showed up” in the country.

The good news is that the Pan African Conference for Family Values brought solidarity between the African believers called to defend God’s word in the public spaces, and those in the United States with a similar call. The American believers said it was tremendously encouraging to be with their African brothers and sisters and know that we are in this together, as we lock arms with the joy and presence of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, we know God wants to perfect his church — his body — and it is a global body. The Pan-African Conference on Family Values saw this unification of the Body of Christ that our God desires continue in a fresh new way. The question is: in the west, do we have the courage and conviction to do it?

CHRISTIANITY IN EUROPE: GOOD NEWS FIRST, REALITY CHECK SECOND

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GOD IS MOVING ACROSS EUROPE – IN FRANCE, HUNGARY & ITALY

FRANCE: Praise, prayer, and the Word of God filled the streets of Paris recently as more than 25,000 people participated in the March for Jesus in France. The massive gathering of believers across Paris on May 25th reportedly broke record participation when attendees gathered together under the banner “Let’s bear witness publicly and in unity” about our faith in Jesus Christ.

A coalition of ministries organized the event which took place in Paris and four other cities including Lille, Nantes, Metz, and Strasbourg. The organizers said that the gathering “allowed Christians of all denominations to raise the name of Jesus above their theological differences.” “We opened ourselves to the entire evangelical Protestant spectrum thanks to the participation of several churches such as MLK, Hillsong, ICC, and also Baptist, charismatic, and more traditional Protestant churches. My role, as coordinator is to keep unity and unite around Jesus,” Gilbert Leonian, the pastor in charge of the Paris march said. He also said, “If we are here, it is not for a religion or to promote our church, but because there is someone who has touched us deeply – Jesus,”

HUNGARY & ITALY: Another wave of massive gatherings has taken place across Europe since the Paris March with more than a thousand people making decisions to follow Jesus Christ – this time in Hungary and Italy. International evangelist Jean-Luc Trachsel says “the power of the Lord” moved at two huge conferences in Hungary and Italy as people were saved, healed, and delivered. “Everywhere in Europe there are hungry and thirsty people,” he wrote on social media.  Trachsel is the founder of Jean-Luc Trachsel Ministries which works to “bring unity among Christians and to proclaim the Gospel to this generation with mercy and compassion.” Recently Trachsel delivered a message in Paris, for the “March For Jesus”. Trachsel shared about a worship event called “This is the Day” in Miskolc, Hungary. That stadium can hold more than 15,000 people, and it was filled with souls hungry for God. Trachsel reports 1,300 people gave their lives to Christ.

Trachsel also shared a message on the power of the Holy Spirit at the Apostolic Conference 2024 hosted by the “Apostolic Church in Italy” in Rome. The three-day conference brought together a network of Italian churches with 11,000 members. A massive Protestant gathering like this is seen as unusual in the seat of Roman Catholicism. Trachsel recounts that “miracles and healings” took place at the conference including someone who was born deaf and left the conference able to hear and another person who had “blind twisted eyes” could see normally after receiving prayer.

REALITY CHECK: He added that the greatest “miracle” was the souls saved. Much of Europe has abandoned the Christian faith, embraced secularism, and returned to its pagan roots. The number of European Christians is expected to drop by about 100 million, falling from 553 million in 2010 to 454 million in 2050. Meanwhile, Europe’s Muslim population is expected to increase by 63% in the same time frame. Trachsel said he is seeing the decline firsthand in Switzerland where only 3 to 5% of the seven million people are born-again Christians. I feel the time is coming in Europe when real Christians will have to be underground,” he said

Trachsel is correct, the church in Europe will be underground as it is in China, Iran, and other Muslim countries. We need to take Jesus warning to heart:

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:9-13